Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem. Prescription addiction can become a real issue in its own right.
Adapted from Able Magazine, Issue #107, September/October 2013. Words: Tom Jamison
Sometimes it seems like people who take medication are trapped between the proverbial ‘rock and a hard place’. The choice is to deal with the illness or suffer the side effects of the medication prescribed. It can be difficult to know what to do for the best.
There are drug addicts and there are ‘drug addicts’. Although the outcome is just another form of addiction, it’s important to make the point that, lots of prescription addicts become addicted quite by accident. In other words, they did not take their first pill to ‘get high’ or as some kind of lifestyle experiment. They probably took their first pill because they couldn’t sleep or were in pain or felt anxious or depressed.
Addiction is a compulsion that manifests in physical and psychological ways. In other words, your body will provide signals to you that it wants a particular substance through perhaps pain or sweating, fever, shivers and the like, whilst the mind will not be able to focus easily on other matters.
Addiction is different in every case so it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise causes or the exact markers as to when a person can be officially labelled as an addict. Furthermore, different people will react differently to medication, making the diagnosis even more problematic. However, there are signs and symptoms that all is not as it should be.
On a simple level, prescription addiction is generally a cycle whereupon medication is used to solve a specific issue, such as eradicating an illness or reducing a symptom. As time continues, the medication may become less efficient at dealing with the problem, so the patient takes more of it. After a further time the increased amount starts to become less efficient and so before the patients realises, they are in a cycle of ever-increasing amounts of medication with fewer effective outcomes. There are occurrences when the patient ends up taking the medication just to feel the same as they did before the prescription was originally issued.
Anybody can become encircled in an addictive pattern but it has been proven that certain people are more likely to get trapped than others. There does seem to be a percentage of the population that has genetic predisposition to addiction in general. The science isn’t exactly precise and so there is as yet no blood test to clarify the likely candidacy of patients to addiction. Markers include, previous issues with substances, such as drugs or alcohol and more anecdotally, close connections with other addicts. Other indicators are linked with illness such as anxiety and depression – this is linked because many prescriptions are originally issued to tackle such symptoms. According to the renowned, Mayo Clinic, the most abused drugs are painkillers, sedatives, anti-anxiety medications and stimulants.
The process of addiction is a simple one. Amongst the most frequently addictive drugs are opioids, usually used as painkillers. This type of medication counters the pain messages that alert the brain with stimulation of the ‘pleasure centres’. Such a sensation can become addictive as the brain tells its owner that it wants more of the pleasure and less of the pain. The compulsion increases over use/time until it becomes as vital (to the brain) as eating or drinking. (The side effects of this process often include an inability to think clearly and a lack of concentration, as well as difficulty controlling behaviour.)
Treatment of any addiction takes more than simple ‘willpower’ and frankly anybody that says otherwise is lucky enough not to have been (properly) addicted. Treatments need to tackle more than the addiction itself need to take on the other challenges, be they psychological or physical, in a holistic manner.
The first point of contact should be a GP who will start with an assessment of your condition and current prescription. They will make a judgement regarding change and action that may lead to other less addictive medications, help and advice on losing your habit or prescribing other services such as a stay at a specialist clinic/hospital admission.
Willpower is part of the solution and relapses are common. The challenge of beating the addiction is likely to be a psychological one that manifests itself in physical ways, not least a craving for the medication. There is no easy way to fix but if your assault is planned and supported you stand a good chance of winning.